To ask what do your healthy 9 yr olds eat?

[beautifulswan]

Wasn't sure where to put this, but as this forum rather busy thought here would be good.

My 9 year old daughter is overweight. She really, really needs to lose some weight. I don't know how much she weighs but I know she's the biggest (girl) in her class and is in clothes 4 years older than her, mainly.

She is a vegetarian so will only eat Quorn products, but I struggle to know what to give her, often whipping up a macaroni cheese or cauli cheese. I have started to cut back on this and also stopped sweets/crisps/cereal bars.

I have also stopped putting crap in her lunch box like Frubes etc. I must admit I really need some inspiration, for her lunch box and dinners. She is always SO hungry! But this has to stop.

So what does your healthy 9 yr old eat on a normal day??

DD is 9, bit short for age, rising 10, scrawny & sporty; she seems to eat a lot compared to her friends, though (even more than many of DS11's friends). This would be typical:

Breakfast: big bowl of cornflakes or Rice snaps

Lunch: one whole sandwich, which is margarine + ham or cucumber slices. One cheese string

Afterschool: Usually a standard cereal bowl size of porridge (full fat milk and a tiny bit of sugar); sometimes a bag of crisps or an apple.

Eve: 2-4 pieces of potato, pile of veggies (like a generous adult handful's worth), some kind of meat (maybe 2-3 sausages worth)

Post-tea snack: one bagel with butter or 2 crumpets or another bowl of porridge

We are on a pudding ban at the moment, but it's not uncommon for her to get a pack of sweets off of somebody, too.

Worra, there is no playing out on the street, but no children around here do. And they are all TINY!!

My kids have their tea between 5:30 and 6. They go to bed between 8 and 8:30. They have a drink of warm milk before bed. They never say they are hungry after tea although they will sometimes ask for some chocolate - I let them have, say 2 squares, if they've eaten their tea and fruit

I am often suspicious when they do say they are hungry because they often aren't - they just want cake or some such crap. Which is fair enough I guess. But it's not hunger

Don't forget that feeling hungry is a natural and normal feeling - not an illness! It's OK to feel hungry. It's natural to feel hungry.

I think in this country we have a pathalogical fear of being hungry - as soon as we feel even slightly peckish, we have a snack. When, in reality, it would do us no harm to feel hungry and wait for dinner iykwim

i swapped to extra mature cheese aswell, you dont need as much for the same flavour :)

At 9 she should be having 65-80 g of fat per day to say nothing of the calcium which it is really important for a girl on the cusp of puberty
I veryt much doubt it'd your meals ( eaten in reasonable portion sizes) which is making her fat.I think it is teh sweets and crisps which have done it.
I am not sure whether she is doing enough exercise ? By walking do you mean sauntering to and from school or a days hill walking? How often does she swim?
Finally most girls accumulate a bit of fat before their phenomenal growth spurt at 10/11

DD just turned 9. Height of an 11 yr old. Slim.

Typical day would be:

Breakfast: Rice crispies with semi skimmed milk (and sugar) or a slice of marmite toast. Juice and poss a bit of fruit.

Snack: Pot of nuts and raisins.

Lunch: Tuna , sweetcorn, cucumber sarnie on 50/50 bread. Packet of crisps and some fruit/yoghurt. Juice.

Snack: Chewy bar/small cake and some fruit. Juice.

Dinner: Spag bol (probably about 1/2 what I would give an adult, 1/3 what I give DP). Juice. Couple of squares of choc for pud.

She does the obligatory 2 sessions of P.E per week and when it's not the summer term she also does swimming after school once a week. She plays netball once a week too. When it's not raining she will be out for about 2 hours everyday after school riding her bike, building dens, playing tennis, racing, etc etc.

She could easily eat lots more but I say no.

We are not vegetarians but we often have a veg curry, hummus and the bean burgers that a poster has mentioned. All yummy. I've tried quorn fillet at SIL's and not only it was discusting and felt artificial but i would need 5 of them to fill me.

Can i just say if you go with the idea of more pulses thats good for iron intake but it shouldn't be dairy in the same meal (it interferes with iron - while vit C aids iron)

And is her iron levels ok?

Cheese isn't the devil's food! It is high in fat but not as high as you'd think - around 30% for cheddar I think (plucked from memory so not necessarily exact). As people have said, grating a little over the top of something for flavour isn't a terrible thing to do, and she does need some fat in her diet. Just doing it less frequently and using it as an extra rather than the main part of a meal eg a little grated cheddar over salad not a cheese sarnie.

I'd second others who've encouraged you to cook with beans and pulses. I'm not veggie, but love eating beans, and the best thing I find is that they really fill you up, so are likely to put a stop to the 'I'm starving' requests! I mix a can of cannelini beans with sliced red onion, chopped fresh mint and parsley, some cherry tomatoes and maybe red or green pepper. Dress it with some olive oil and lemon juice. I will also mix in a can of tuna, but you can leave that out. Bean salads are great!

Mine do sometimes say they are hungry at night, but I think that this is because they often do sport after tea. Night time snacks are tomatoes, cucumber, carrots and apples.

As well as eating less, could she do more. Mine play tennis, do a martial art, cycle, swim and each do one other sport.

34.9% fat in Cathedral City Mature cheddar.

Do you cook cannelini beans? I've never bought beans in my life (she hates baked beans!!) She loves salads that meal sounds nice brod. Is it a dinner or snack??

Laq, I have no idea about vit C iron etc, how would I know if her iron levels were ok?

She'll do a long dog walk maybe 4 times a week, swim once (only recently) play in the park and scoot (on a skateboard ramp) and really work up a sweat doing this. Think that's it. I'd like her to join more clubs but she's not keen.

Beautifulswan, interesting to see where you said that you struggle not to get angry with her. I can tell that you're aware of this already, but just wanted to say be very careful of how you handle this and your own reactions. The worst thing would be if your daughter feels that (even if she is interpreting the situation wrongly) people are disappointed in her or that she is in some way shameful or wrong. It's so easy for overweight children to interpret people's concern about their weight as meaning that they are in some way inferior, leading to self-esteem issues and more complicated relationship with food, leading to life long food and self esteem issues (and making the overeating and weight gain worse).
I'm not saying this to startle or upset you, just to make you aware of the pitfalls of handling this in the wrong way. There is nothing at all wrong with helping your daughter with healthier eating, but I'd do it in a way that embraces a 'whole family' approach and that avoids singling her out, and that introduces gradual changes rather than unsustainable big sudden change, and avoiding any sense of blame or failure.
It sounds like she has difficulty in coping with feeling hungry and also stopping eating when she has become full. It might be helpful to gently support her in coping with feeling hungry between meals without instantly needing to sate it and in noticing when she is full after a meal and stopping eating instead of continuing. You can do this by modelling the behaviour and thinking...e.g. if you are feeling hungry before dinner say "oh, I'm a bit hungry but that's ok, dinner's soon" etc, and for not over-eating at dinner - "that was yum but I'm full. If I eat any more I'll feel too full and uncomfortable".
She is not going to suddenly be able to manager her hunger and a sudden change in eating regime at home that leaves her hungrier will just make her feel worse and want to sate her hunger more, so I would suggest be careful about suddenly cutting down the amount she is eating, do it more gradually and instead focus on swapping the unhealthy for the healthy e.g crisps for carrot batons and small dollop of hummus or handful or strawberries etc. Don't ban occasional treats either, as they'll just take on the allure of forbidden food.
It's about a long term plan to help her manage her eating and hunger better.

Sorry this is so long!!

All beans bought in tins are pre cooked. If you buy them in packets they need soaking overnight and cooking for an hour or so. I tend to use tinned. The beans have different textures eg cannelini beans are large and quite soft under the skin, black eyed beans are small and quite firm, chick peas are smaller and firmer, and you know she likes them because they're in hummus.

She can't possibly be bigger overnight as a result of a small portion of cauliflower cheese!

DS, not vegetarian, will have
1 slice of wholemeal toast with a boiled egg, small portion of baked beans, thin slice of cheese, or just a spread
Fruit

School dinner - or if at home something 'ordinary', sopmetimes oatcakes and hummous, fish fingers and peas.

Dinner - kedgeree, spag bol, chilli, chicken portions, a salmon fillet - usually with boiled potatoes, pasta, and alsways veg.

About 3 times a week a small portion of ice cream. Snack-wise - generally an oat bar or something.

Good snacks / food for veggies:

Dolmades - I buy the ones in tins from the greek shops near us, less oily and cheaper than the deli counter or chilled ones.
Felafel - maybe in a wholemeal wrap with salad
mushrooms - marinaded and sauted in a tiny amount of olive oil, good in a wholemeal wrap
Spanish omlette made with lots of veg
Instead of frubes, freeze those Innocent fruit tubes and use as a fruit ice lolly
Does she like cottage cheese? Baked potato with cottage cheese, maybe with chives, black pepper, or whatever. No butter on the potato!

beautifulswan when our DD1 was a similar age to yours we noticed that she was getting overweight. Before we did anything else we took a good look at absoluteley everything she ate and drank and did a calorie count. It sounds a bit dull but was absolutely vital and we did it without making any assumptions.

In our DD's case we found out that the problem was the soft drinks which she had with every meal. The drink sounded healthy but was in fact laden with sugar. She cut back on that drink and very quickly slimmed down without any suffering at all. DD1 is now a slim, shapely 15 year old.

I would heartily recommend this initial assessment. It may surprise you!

I don't know. I guess the only way to find out is to have a blood test.

It is very common in vegetarians to be low in iron, chich makes them tired and thirsty which can be confused with hunger.

Iron rich non-meat foods: beans and lentils, spinach, brocoli, dried apricots.

Should not be eaten with dairy but with vit C foods i.e. peppers, brocoli, tomatos, lemons or small glass of orangejuice. So the veg curry or brodanbell's salad is a good combination.

I think you're covered on the healthy food side but I would also find some sort of exercise that she likes doing. Maybe going on bike rides or start roller skating maybe even a trampolining club at the local leisure centre and of course there's always swimming. My 9yo ds is very slim but he's also never still!!! He's always up and about doing lots of things so maybe encourage her to start Xx

Beans and lentils are your friend. We are not veggie but often make stews and curries that are full of these and veggies with a bit of meat thrown in but you could easily leave it out. You can batch cook these and freeze them to make things easier and then just serve with some rice or bread.

Low fat yoghurts are also good. They line the stomach and fill you up for not v many calories (and you can stick them in a bowl with fruit).

Portion size is another good point. Our family meals always looked like the 3 bears' breakfast! A big bowl for dad, a smaller bowl for mum and a smaller bowl again for me. I was a size 10 throughout my teens and twenties so I guess it worked! I always had to ask for snacks but never went short of the odd biscuit or bit of chocolate.

I was veggie for many years and I did tend to end up eating an awful lot of cheese. But I was v slim, I think because I was pretty active, so I agree with the advice to try to get her off the sofa more!

My kids are 10 and 11. In comparison to some on here, my two eat a lot. The 11 yo is skinny, the 10yo is average.

They have

Breakfast- bowl of cereal or 2 slices of toast
Mid morning snack- usually a banana
Lunch -sandwich made from 2 slices of wholemeal bread with chicken, tuna or ham filling. Packet of crisps or dairylea Dunkers and some cake.
Afternoon snack- 3 - 5 biscuits
Dinner -a three quarter size adult portion of whatever we are having with a mousse or a yogurt for pudding

My 10 yo is still always hungry or so she says, but I don't allow her to have any more. She does often seem to beg food when she is at her friends houses playing. I hate her doing this.

Selks, please don't apologise, thanks for taking the time to reply, I know it's so important not to make this an issue (without ignoring the fact that it is an issue obviously) I really don't want to make her have an unhealthy relationship with food. She is obsessed with it though, if she's having a friend for tea in a few days time the first thing she'll ask is what will we be having for tea? I'm always quite surprised as I was a rake as a child and have no memories of ever wondering what was for dinner or getting excited about food at all! But yes, a healthy gradual change it'll be.

Gnome my partner often buys pop and I buy fruit juices, will cut these out too and try replacing with water.

aquos mine wouldn't beg at someone elses, she saves that for home! She recently went on holiday with close friends without me and came back thinner, I was really pleased but it soon went back on, really quickly in fact.
But, she said she was hungry a lot of the time! She was also extremely active (lots of swimming with friends)

I've been veggie all my life and have at times battled with the evil cheese - just too yummy :)

Pulses are the way forward - houmus made with chickpeas, falafel (chickpea patties) in pitta, beans/lentils in curry or stew, homemade "minestrone" (I put frozen soya beans - birdseye do them, and or aduki beans, lots of veggies and some broken spaghetti in mine) great for filling up at lunchtime without loads of calories.

Also what about a small portion of nuts and raisins to come home with or as soon as she gets home. My 5yo dd always has them as soon as we come out of school because she's so hungry she can't walk home without a fight if not :) . Although nuts are high fat they are also a good source of protein/vits in small doses. Our faves are cashews, which are also lovely sprinkled onto stirfry.